The Endlands (vol 1) Read online

  Soon, one of the EMTs reappeared, accompanied by the cop. The tech lit a cigarette while the cop sloshed coffee from a Styrofoam cup as they stood at the edge of the walkway some ten feet from Phillip, staring at the city before them.

  "She said she fell off a ladder trying to change a light bulb. Her boyfriend just stood there, kind of smirking while we loaded her. Even chuckled at her clumsiness. We get in the ambulance, and right away Pam starts pushing her to tell the truth about what happened. The woman finally comes clean, says her boyfriend roughed her up for taking some of his money," the EMT explained.

  With a nod, the cop replied, "That explains why she didn't want to talk to me. She's damn sure not going to press charges."

  "Of course not. Hell, he's her dealer. It was his profits she stole!"

  The cop raised his coffee cup in a mock toast. "White trash soap opera."

  "You know what makes it worse?" continued the EMT. "She's three months pregnant."

  Phillip felt a surge of righteous anger, not only toward the unseen battering boyfriend, but also toward the girl, and the calloused civil servants as well. The cop tossed out a final remark. "No shit. That'll be another little low-life to make my job harder one day. If the dad doesn't kill him first."

  The cop returned to the hospital, having never sipped from his coffee. After a final drag, the EMT joined him. Now alone, but for the traffic just yards away, Phillip tore open the plastic wrapper with a feral snap.

  Phillip polished off the last of the crackers and sat alone in the February chill for a while, trying to push back the gnawing feeling that he was trapped, missing his prime, and getting broker by the day. He rose and made for the elevator, again passing through the holding area of the ER. On the television that presided over the room, the eternal newscast continued. A field reporter spoke through a garbled satellite connection, while images of turbaned soldiers doing battle in a desert city street flashed. The caption underneath read: "Treaty Violations Lead To Unrest".

  The elevator ride would be the last shred of solitude for Phillip. The doors slid open to a far different atmosphere than when he had left some twenty minutes ago.

  A harried orderly ran by, nearly colliding with him en route to the stairwell. At the nurse's station, two nurses stood close together, sharing a look of bewildered horror, speaking in hushed tones.

  Seeing Phillip, they averted their eyes.

  An uneasy feeling washed over him, pushing him faster toward Charlotte and Room 422. Rounding and rounding the unending corner, he passed through clusters of urgency and confusion. Nurses, doctors, and security personnel jockeyed and shuffled, jostling him without so much as a glance. This was a good sign, wasn't it? That something was wrong besides . . .

  From Room 422, Nurse Jeanette appeared and looked down the hall with wild eyes. She saw Phillip and quickly withdrew. A rangy security guard stepped out and met Phillip's panicked gaze, setting himself authoritatively. Phillip's brisk stride had become a run, just as the security guard met him head-on, catching him by the arms.

  "Hold on, buddy," said the guard.

  Then Charlotte uttered a shrill scream that shook Phillip to his soul.

  Phillip pushed forward. "What are you doing? What's wrong with my wife?"

  "Just a minute." The guard's tone was more menacing than soothing. Phillip was becoming quite strident, ready in fact, to misuse his pugilistic skills, when Doctor Pope appeared in the doorway, looking stunned.

  "It's alright. Let him come in."

  Phillip didn't like the breathless sound of Pope's voice. He shoved past the guard and entered Room 422.

  Charlotte was crying, her face squinched in a brand of distress that could only be maternal. Jeanette held her right hand, Regina the left. Phillip rushed to Charlotte, searching her contorted face, fearing and anticipating a miscarriage. He also felt a deep and selfish little part of him hoping for it--and quickly squashed that.

  "What is it? What's wrong, honey?"

  "The baby . . ." Charlotte began, crying fresh tears, before covering her mouth with trembling hands.

  "Something's wrong with the baby? What is it?"

  They remained maddeningly silent, offering only sorrow and fear in their countenances. Doctor Pope took Phillip aside to the far corner, where he searched for articulation.

  "I'm sorry."

  "The baby's . . . dead?"

  ". . . No. No, not that."

  "Well?"

  "It's . . . not normal."

  "What do you mean? You said everything was fine . . ."

  Pope seemed to be suppressing a shiver. His professional veneer was showing cracks. "I know, and it was. I thought. I don't know what happened." He stared into Phillip's chest.

  "Has . . . Charlotte been exposed to anything unusual in the last few days?"

  Phillip drew a blank. "Like what? What are you getting at?"

  "I DON'T KNOW! It's just not normal. That's all I can tell you. We've had it and the others removed to an isolated room for examination. I've put in a call to a colleague of mine."

  "Wait a minute . . . What do you mean, 'it'? What others? What the hell is going on?"

  Phillip had gotten past any fear of a stillbirth. It was fear of the unknown that now held reign. Pope continued to avoid Phillip's gaze.

  "Please bring back my baby," Interjected Charlotte softly. "I just want my baby."

  Regina stroked her daughter's hair. "Don't do this to yourself, dear."

  Pope just looked at her, helpless. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Troyer . . ."

  "I WANT MY BABEEEE!!"

  The outburst, so unlike Charlotte, startled everyone in the room. Phillip turned Pope around and stood close, staring into the smaller man's eyes.

  "Just bring the baby. I want to see it."

  "I'm afraid I can't do that."

  Phillip's patience was spent. Grabbing Pope by the collar of his surgical gown, he shook him.

  "BRING OUR BABY IN HERE, NOW!"

  Pope, still wearing the stunned expression, seemed to be only mildly frightened by Phillip's gruff insistence. Something else had shaken him far worse.

  "Alright. Alright. You'd best prepare yourself. Jeanette. Bring the . . . child."

  Phillip released Pope and went to Charlotte, his mind racing with dreadful possibilities. "Are you in pain?"

  "I just don't understand. I did everything right. How could this . . . ?" She hitched with a sudden sob.

  "Tell me what's wrong with it?" Phillip ventured again.

  "What's wrong with it!" Regina broke in. "It's not human. I don't know WHAT it is. This is God's punishment, Phillip. For the way you live your life."

  "Mother. Shut! UP!" Charlotte startled the room again, nearly lunging off the bed in her sudden rage.

  Pope stepped forward. "Stop it, please!" he pleaded.

  He turned to the door, drawing everyone's attention to Jeanette. She stood in the doorway with the tiny bundled figure, holding it away from her a few inches.

  "Come on in, Jeanette."

  She walked to Charlotte and handed her the bundle. Charlotte's look of terror and confusion had vanished, replaced by a loving smile and the bliss of new motherhood. Regina looked at the baby a moment, and then broke into desperate weeping as she slowly backed away from it. Charlotte did not acknowledge this, instead turning the tiny being toward Phillip for his first look.

  Phillip had returned to the waiting room, staring in stupefied silence at the floor while countless doctors, nurses, and orderlies trotted past him. He was for the moment oblivious to the rush, the madness that was overtaking the hospital moment by moment.

  Whatever perception Phillip held of reality had been washed clean. He had entered room 422 with a set of values and beliefs, and had left with only a vague memory of those absurdities. Another world had slipped in over the one he knew, and was quickly erasing the original, familiar planet Earth, and with it, all sense of order.

  Yet, Phillip sensed there was a greater order taking shape.

&n
bsp; Hearing a familiar clumsy shuffle, he raised his head to see Conagher ambling down the hall. This was not the garrulous capitalist who had engaged him in awkward small talk an hour ago. Conagher now wore the shell-shocked expression that was becoming the order of the day and was talking to himself in low tones. Phillip stood and intercepted him gently.

  "Conagher. How's your wife?"

  Conagher seemed to be staring through him, struggling to focus. "My wife?"

  "Did she deliver?" Phillip asked.

  "Deliver? Yeah. She delivered. But not a baby."

  Phillip felt the numb terror again.

  "I . . . I don't know what it is. I've never seen anything like it." Conagher's voice sounded odd, detached.

  "You too," Phillip stated.

  Phillip let go of Conagher's arm, and the gangly accountant continued his aimless trek, like a wind-up robot. Phillip watched his progress for a moment before his attention was drawn to the sudden drone of the Asian newscaster on television. One of the nurses had turned up the volume. Two, and soon four of her co-workers joined her in front of the set, folding their arms in front of them as if to be protected from the report that frightened and fascinated them.

  ". . . Number of reports are surfacing from hundreds of sources around the world that newborn babies appear to be radically abnormal. Since these reports initially broke, not one of several thousand new babies has come out of the womb without these, quote, bizarre-yet-symmetrical deformities, to use the words of one doctor. No photos or images of the children are being released at this time, and few details have surfaced. However, an Arizona doctor has reportedly stated, "It's like an all new species." We hope to have more on this astonishing story in a few minutes."

  Phillip stared at the image of the Asian woman, feeling anything but relief that he shared this circumstance with apparently every other new parent in the known world. The nurses chattered in confusion among themselves.

  From down the hall, a female voice cried out. Phillip swallowed, tasting a vague, acrid mix of crackers and bile. As he started back toward Room 422, he found Doctor Pope standing at the nurse's station, alone, rubbing his left temple.

  "What's this mean, Doctor? Tell me why this is happening," Phillip asked.

  Pope squinted at Phillip, saying nothing for a long moment. He looked down at a chart, then back to Phillip. "I can't tell you, exactly. You'll find out for yourself soon enough."

  "Are you hiding something?" Phillip asked.

  "No."

  "Why not say it?"

  Pope pondered a moment. "I have an associate who's a psychologist. He's had several patients who were mothers-to-be. They came to him independently of each other, worried about dreams they'd had." Pope aimed the remote at the mounted television and turned it off. Phillip noticed his hands were shaking, despite his calm and measured voice. "Sweeping, vivid dreams, that humanity was being pushed aside by some growing, unseen force. They all felt vaguely complicit somehow. Traitorous, yet just as doomed as everyone else."

  Pope finally looked directly at Phillip. "How's Charlotte been sleeping?"

  Phillip knew his voice would come out strained and desperate. "This is crazy."

  "Crazy. What's crazy is that we've lasted this long. God, or whatever, has finally come up with a better idea."

  Phillip wanted to believe that Pope had just cracked under the strain. But a growing part of him knew that he hadn't.

  "We've run out of time," Pope finished.

  Phillip had a sudden and profound need to return his world to normal, at any cost. He started down the hall at a quick pace, turning long enough to say, "I'm going to stop this."

  "Oh really? How?" Pope asked with resigned sarcasm.

  Phillip did not answer.

  "It's pointless, Phillip. There's no stopping it now. Face it. We've had our shot."

  Phillip turned and fired a baleful stare at the doctor, who offered nothing further.

  In Room 422, Phillip found Charlotte still holding their progeny amid an unnatural quiet. Regina was standing back from the bed as though she was an attending servant, a role Phillip could not have imagined her playing. Her expression was serene, another incongruity. Jeanette quietly crossed the room in her practiced task of tidying.

  Charlotte looked up from the baby for a second to cast a contented smile at Phillip. "It's beautiful," she said.

  They're still saying 'it', Phillip thought, as he searched the room for an improvised noose.

  His gaze fell on a cloth surgical mask. Taking it, he wrapped it once around his fist and pulled it taut with the other hand, holding it low as he advanced on the child he knew he must murder. Regina continued to stare into space, while Charlotte calmly turned the child to face Phillip.

  Phillip stopped in his tracks. The surgical mask slipped from his hand.

  He clamped hands against his temples, feeling movement inside his skull, as though a skittering but purposed rodent had just burrowed inside. The initial shock was painful, but after a moment, it seemed natural. Phillip's secret sins were found and examined, much to his embarrassment.

  Under his child's influence, these transgressions were reduced to simple evidence of flawed conditioning. Phillip was allowed to draw the same conclusion that Pope, Charlotte, Regina, Jeanette and doubtlessly many others had reached.

  He allowed the intrusion, feeling he no longer had a right to fight it.

  The baby's large black eyes, analytical pools of obsidian capable, Phillip sensed, of seeing far beyond the normal human spectrum, made Phillip feel like he was the child, amusing in his deluded self-importance. Its pointed, bat-like ears cocked minutely toward every tiny noise in the room, and seemingly beyond. Its tiny fingers flexed and fisted; more dexterous and nimble than Phillip could ever hope to be.

  Other than these features, the child might have been human. Its 'mutations' were actually vast improvements.

  It raised itself from Charlotte to lean toward Phillip; apparently fascinated by his dysfunction, his weakness disguised behind the parody of strength.

  Regina walked out of the room as Phillip took several slow steps toward the baby, seeing it now as not something alien, or ugly, or beautiful, but just superior.

  Phillip felt very tired, very drained, and quite obsolete. The baby's gaze followed Phillip as he sat down at the chair beside the window and took a long final look at a polluted world of blaring sirens, abused drug addicts, religious assassins and flaming trash barrels.

  A Night in Polidoria

  by Cristin Martin

  The city of Polidoria was different from most cities. The houses there consisted of windows with silver bars melded into the shape of a cross. The nails used to construct these homes weren't made of steel like most nails; Polidoria was unique for manufacturing nails of pure silver. There was a silversmith on every block. Lampposts were all over; the brightness spilling from them was blinding. Of course, every light was switched on the moment the sun set. No one ever slept with the lights off--they didn't dare. A crucifix hung in every room of every house. Bottles of holy water were stored in the cupboards and sharp wooden stakes hid underneath seat cushions. Meals were eaten with cloves of garlic, the food always blessed by a priest. And every night, at five o'clock, when the sirens went off, the people automatically evacuated the streets and took refuge.

  Diana Nedderman had grown familiar with the rules of her city and accepted them like everyone else. In her seventeen years, Diana had never been allowed to leave the house at night.

  She was an ordinary girl, realistically average, and so was her boyfriend. His name was Lowell, and he was new in town. Had Diana been brought up in any other city, the teenage couple would have gone to the movies or dances. But Diana knew the rules. She hated them because they isolated her from truly living, but she knew they existed for her own safety. Better an isolated life than no life.

  But Lowell was an amateur to the Polidorian way of life. He did not understand. They had dated for only a few months. During those mon
ths, Lowell often attempted to coax Diana out of the house at night, and more than once told her how silly it was to believe in such hocus pocus.

  "You can't spend your entire life being afraid," Lowell would whisper as he kissed her. "You have nothing to fear. I'll protect you." He would kiss her again, always harder the second time.

  But Diana would only smile and blush, then wisely shake her head 'no'.

  Tonight was like every night. When the sirens rang, Diana threw a final glance at the sun. She had to go indoors. Diana made her way toward the house and was about to shut the door when she stopped suddenly. Mr. Walpole, another neighbor of hers, was still in his yard, whistling. It was as if he was oblivious of the darkening sky. Behavior like that wasn't right. It wasn't normal. Diana lingered at the door, curiously watching him. Her fingers involuntarily flew up to her neck as she felt the heavy silver locket given to her at birth. As a baby, it had dangled protectively above the cradle. Now, she always wore it around her neck. Tonight, as she eyed Mr. Walpole, she was grateful she owned such a powerful talisman.

  Mr. Walpole's appearance was rough, the type of look she expected one of them to have. Tall and powerfully built for his age, Mr. Walpole's features were craggy, his hair disheveled with bulging, wild eyes. She hung back long enough for Mr. Walpole to notice her. He returned her gaze with a demented smile. With an unpleasant jolt, Diana slammed the door and bolted it.

  Diana was alone. She was unaccustomed to being home without her parents. Mr. and Mrs. Nedderman had gone to visit an old friend of the family. Poor Mrs. Lycan. The old widow had turned reclusive after her husband's grisly slaughter. Visits always gave the poor woman a little bit of cheer. Mom and Dad must have lost track of time, Diana told herself with a childish stubbornness, refusing to think otherwise. No matter. They were safe, and so was she. The rules of safety had been drilled into her for so long that they were second nature.

  "For God's sake, let me in!" The cry was followed by a frenzy of knocks against the front door. "For the love of God, let me in!"